Placing perceptions of politics in the context of the feedback environment, employee attitudes, and job performance

The authors proposed a model suggesting that organizational environments supporting high levels of informal supervisor and coworker feedback are associated with lower employee perceptions of organizational politics. Furthermore, these lowered perceptions of politics were proposed to result in higher employee morale (as reflected in job satisfaction and affective commitment) and, through morale, to higher levels of task performance and organizational citizenship. The proposed mediational model was supported with empirical results from 150 subordinate-supervisor dyads sampled across a variety of organizations. Higher quality feedback environments were associated with lower perceptions of organizational politics, and morale mediated the relationships between organizational politics and various aspects of work performance. These findings suggest that when employees have greater access to information regarding behaviors that are acceptable and desired at work, perceptions of politics are reduced and work outcomes are enhanced.     

Attachment to God,religious tradition,and firm attributes in workplace commitment

Research on organizational commitment suggests there is an association between American theists’ emotional attachment to God and their emotional commitment to the workplace. A sense of divine calling has been shown to partially mediate this association but, beyond that, little is known. The purpose of this study is to shed further light on the relationship between secure attachment to God and affective organizational commitment. I do so by testing whether the employee’s religious tradition is associated with affective organizational commitment and whether the employee’s firm attributes moderate the relationship between attachment to God and organizational commitment. Results suggest that: 1) Catholics evince higher levels of organizational commitment than Evangelicals, and 2) firm size significantly moderates the relationship between attachment to God and organizational commitment across religious affiliations.     

Performance differences among four organizational commitment profiles

The authors drew from prior research on organizational commitment and from configural organizational theory to propose a framework of affective and continuance commitment profiles. Using cluster analyses, the authors obtained evidence for 4 of these profiles in an energy industry sample (N=970) and a sample of 345 employed college students. The authors labeled the clusters: allied (i.e., moderate affective and continuance commitment), free agents (moderate continuance commitment and low affective commitment), devoted (high affective and continuance commitment), and complacent (moderate affective and low continuance commitment). Using a subset of the employed student sample (n=148), the authors also found that the free agents received significantly poorer supervisor ratings of performance, organizational citizenship behavior, and antisocial behavior than any other group.     

The professional career on the right track: A study on the interaction between career self-management and organizational career management in explaining employee outcomes

This article explores the relationship between organizational career management and career self-management and addresses the impact on employee outcomes. Within six large organizations, a sample of 491 employees reported on their career self-management initiatives, on their expectations towards organizational career support, and on their commitment and career success. This was complemented by information from their supervisors on career management support offered by HR and line management to these employees. Results show that individuals who take more initiatives to manage their career expect more career support from their employer. Career self-management positively impacts affective commitment and perceived career success, while organizational career management is positively related with affective commitment and career progress. Career self-management moderates the relationship of organizational career management with affective commitment and subjective career success.     

Working in the hangar: The impact of psychological capital on work outcomes among army aircraft mechanics

Based on positive organizational behavior, this study aimed to explore the impact of psychological capital (PsyCap) on task performance, organizational citizenship behaviors, affective commitment, and job satisfaction among army aircraft mechanics. Data was obtained from 260 aircraft mechanics working in various Turkish Army aviation units. The hypotheses were tested using a series of hierarchical regressions. The results indicated that those with higher PsyCap are more likely to depict task performance, engage in highly extra-role behaviors, be more committed to their organizations, and be highly satisfied with their jobs that are advantageous to army aviation settings. The authors concluded that promoting the levels of PsyCap could be effective in elevating aircraft mechanics’ work attitudes and behaviors. Military aviation units are encouraged to establish human resource development programs to foster the PsyCap of their soldiers, which in turn, enhances crucial work attitudes.     

Bases of social power,leadership styles,and organizational commitment

Affective organizational commitment reflects the extent to which organizational members are loyal and willing to work toward organizational objectives (Meyer & Allen, 1997). In particular, affective organizational commitment holds very important implications at all organizational levels (e.g., turnover rates, performance, and citizenship behavior). Whereas previous research has evinced the positive influence of transformational and charismatic leadership styles on affective commitment toward the organization (Bass & Avolio, 1994), little is known with regard to the nature of this relationship. In line with the interpersonal power/interaction model, the present investigation aimed to investigate the mechanism at play between transformational leadership style and affective organizational commitment. Specifically, we hypothesized that transformational leadership style would increase affective organizational commitment through its effect on willingness to comply with soft bases of power. In two studies, we subjected the foregoing hypotheses to empirical scrutiny. In Study 1, the proposed mediation model was empirically supported with Italian employees in the public sector. Attesting to the robustness of our findings, Study 2 replicated the findings of Study 1 with Italian employees from the public and private sectors. In addition, Study 2 replicated Study 1 using a different measure of transformational leadership. Both Study 1 and Study 2 provided results consistent with our hypotheses. Specifically, the present paper reports empirical evidence that (1) the more participants report having a transformational leader, the more willing they become to comply with soft (but not harsh) power bases, (2) in turn, greater willingness to comply with soft (but not harsh) power bases increases one's affective organizational commitment. These findings provide additional support for the interpersonal power/interaction model and pave the way for new research directions.     

Job attitudes of workers with two jobs

This article examines the job attitudes of people who hold more than one job. Satisfaction, stress, and organizational (continuance and affective) commitment were assessed for both primary and secondary jobs for 83 full-time workers who held two jobs concurrently. Consistency between job constructs across jobs was negligible, except for continuance organizational commitment and job satisfaction. Similarity between jobs was a significant moderator of convergence (though not consistency), whereas affective disposition did not appear to affect consistency or convergence. Holders of multiple jobs had higher satisfaction, higher stress, and higher affective organizational commitment with their primary jobs compared to their secondary jobs. Hierarchical regression analyses demonstrated that job constructs associated with the primary job were useful for explaining life outcomes, even after controlling for affective disposition. Job constructs associated with secondary jobs, however, were not useful in explaining life outcomes. Limitations of the current study as well as suggestions for future research are given.     

Reciprocation of perceived organizational support

Four hundred thirteen postal employees were surveyed to investigate reciprocation's role in the relationships of perceived organizational support (POS) with employees' affective organizational commitment and job performance. The authors found that (a) POS was positively related to employees' felt obligation to care about the organization's welfare and to help the organization reach its objectives; (b) felt obligation mediated the associations of POS with affective commitment, organizational spontaneity, and in-role performance; and (c) the relationship between POS and felt obligation increased with employees' acceptance of the reciprocity norm as applied to work organizations. Positive mood also mediated the relationships of POS with affective commitment and organizational spontaneity. The pattern of findings is consistent with organizational support theory's assumption that POS strengthens affective commitment and performance by a reciprocation process.     

An examination of the role of perceived support and employee commitment in employee-customer encounters

The authors examined the relationships between perceived organizational support, organizational commitment, commitment to customers, and service quality in a fast-food firm. The research design matched customer responses with individual employees' attitudes, making this study a true test of the service provider-customer encounter. On the basis of a sample of matched employee-customer data (N = 133), hierarchical linear modeling analyses revealed that perceived organizational support had both a unit-level and an employee-level effect on 1 dimension of service quality: helping behavior. Contrary to affective organizational commitment, affective commitment to customers enhanced service quality. The 2 sub-dimensions of continuance commitment to the organization--perceived high sacrifice and perceived lack of alternatives--exerted effects opposite in sign: The former fostered service quality, whereas the latter reduced it. The implications of these findings are discussed within the context of research on employee-customer encounters.     

Organizational and client commitment among contracted employees

This study examines affective commitment to employing and client organizations among long-term contracted employees, a new and growing employment classification. Drawing on organizational commitment and social exchange literatures, we propose two categories of antecedents of employee commitment to client organizations. We tested our hypotheses using a survey collected from employees in four UK contracting organizations delivering a service on behalf of a government entity. The results suggest that perceived client organizational support and attractiveness of the client organization relate positively to employees’ affective commitment to the client organization. Furthermore, affective contractor commitment explained unique variation in client affective commitment beyond that accounted for by the client-based predictors, suggesting that employees’ commitment to their own contracting organization is important to explaining employees’ commitment to the client organization. We suggest that a greater reliance on social exchange theory may provide a basis for understanding commitment in its different forms and foci.     

Mitigating the Harmful Effect of Perceived Organizational Compliance on Trust in Top Management: Buffering Roles of Employees’ Personal Resources

This study considers how employees’ POC—defined as their beliefs that the organizational climate stifles change and values compliance with the status quo—reduce their trust in top management, as well as how this negative relationship might be buffered by access to two personal resources that support organizational change: openness to experience and affective commitment to change. Data from a sample of Pakistan-based organizations reveal that POC reduce trust in top management, but this effect is weaker at higher levels of openness to experience and affective commitment to change. These findings are significant in that they indicate that employees who operate in organizational climates marked by “yea-saying” can counter the difficulty of improving their job situation by drawing from adequate personal resources.     

A time-lagged investigation of the mediating role of person–organization fit in the relationship between leader–member exchange and employee affective organizational commitment

This study provides a new perspective on the relationship between LMX and affective organizational commitment, treating person-organization fit (P-O fit) as an explanatory mechanism and identifying co-worker support and customer recognition as moderators of the first stage of this indirect relationship. Results of a three-wave time-lagged study of survey responses obtained from 137 employees working in the retail service sector over a three-year period were consistent with the proposed model. Multiple regression and moderated mediation analyses revealed that LMX indirectly and positively predicted affective organizational commitment through its positive relationship with P–O fit, suggesting that LMX provides a means by which supervisors are able to instill organizational values in employees and/or signal the degree to which their values match those of the organization. Moreover, co-worker support and customer recognition each moderated the first stage of this indirect relationship, such that the relationship between LMX and P–O fit and, in turn, its indirect relationship with affective organizational commitment is stronger as support from co-workers or customer recognition is lacking. At high levels of co-worker support and customer recognition, LMX exhibits no significant relationship with P–O fit. Together, these results provide new explanations for how and under which conditions LMX might influence employee commitment, suggesting that LMX is particularly salient when employees are lacking other sources of relational support or recognition and that high-quality relations with co-workers and/or customers may serve to compensate for low LMX quality in shaping P–O fit and affective organizational commitment.     

Interpersonal Conflict and Organizational Commitment: Examining Two Levels of Supervisory Support as Multilevel Moderators1

Using a stressor‐strain framework, this research examined the role of supervisory support at 2 organizational levels in the relationship between the work stressor of interpersonal conflict and organizational commitment in a military sample. In all analyses, supervisory support at both levels was conceptualized and modeled as a shared group attribute. Results indicated that perceptions of interpersonal conflict within the organization were related negatively to both affective and continuance commitment. Support from both first‐line supervisors and midlevel managers was related to employees’ affective commitment. First‐line supervisor support was related also to employees’ continuance commitment. Furthermore, midlevel management support attenuated the relationship between interpersonal conflict and continuance commitment. Implications for the assessment of different levels of supervisory support, different variants of organizational commitment, and interpersonal conflict are discussed.     

Getting credit for OCBs: potential costs of being a good actor vs. a good soldier

Employing a sample of 197 employee-supervisor dyads, we explore whether employees’ attitudes and underlying motivation for engaging in organizational citizenship behaviours (OCBs) differentially relate to supervisors’ assessments of their individual performance and reward recommendations. We theorized that employees who perform OCBs with self-serving motives would be low on affective commitment and high on equity sensitivity, and that such individuals would receive lower performance ratings and fewer reward recommendations than those who are high on affective commitment, low on equity sensitivity, and more selflessly motivated. Our results suggest that employees with high affective commitment, low equity sensitivity, and high selfless motives were more likely to receive positive supervisor performance ratings and high reward recommendations. We also found that affective commitment moderated the mediating path of prosocial values (a selfless motive) on the relationship between OCBs and reward recommendations. Practical implications and future research directions are discussed.     

Antecedents and outcomes of unit cohesion and affective commitment to the Army

Group cohesion and affective commitment have shown to have critical relevance to military organizations in particular. The relationship between cohesion and affective commitment is established, and the two constructs share a number of common organizational antecedents and employee outcomes. The authors explored the relationship between cohesion and affective commitment in a model that incorporates antecedents (effectiveness of immediate leadership and procedural justice) and consequences (organizational citizenship behaviors [OCBs] and turnover intentions) common to both. Respondents (N = 714, 102 women, 612 men) were Canadian Army personnel. The models suggest that cohesion partially mediates the relationships between (a) perceptions of immediate leadership and affective commitment to the Army and (b) perceptions of unit procedural justice and affective commitment to the Army. Furthermore, affective commitment to the Army partially mediates the relationship between unit cohesion and turnover intentions but fully mediates the relationship between unit cohesion and OCBs. This model helps explain some common variance between unit cohesion and organizational affective commitment.     

Beyond the three-component model of organizational commitment

This article offers a conceptual critique of the three-component model (TCM) of organizational commitment (Allen & Meyer, 1990) and proposes a reconceptualization based on standard attitude theory. The authors use the attitude-behavior model by Eagly and Chaiken (1993) to demonstrate that the TCM combines fundamentally different attitudinal phenomena. They argue that general organizational commitment can best be understood as an attitude regarding the organization, while normative and continuance commitment are attitudes regarding specific forms of behavior (i.e., staying or leaving). The conceptual analysis shows that the TCM fails to qualify as general model of organizational commitment but instead represents a specific model for predicting turnover. The authors suggest that the use of the TCM be restricted to this purpose and that Eagly and Chaiken's model be adopted as a generic commitment model template from which a range of models for predicting specific organizational behaviors can be extracted. Finally, they discuss the definition and measurement of the organizational commitment attitude. Covering the affective, cognitive, and behavioral facets of this attitude helps to enhance construct validity and to differentiate the construct from other constructs.     

A closer look at the relationship between affective commitment to supervisors and organizations and turnover

We examined the relationships of affective organizational commitment and affective commitment to supervisors with turnover intentions and actual turnover, using three independent samples of employees. In Sample 1 (N=172) and Sample 2 (N=186), affective organizational commitment and affective commitment to supervisors were found to exert independent negative effects on turnover intentions. Moreover, in both samples, affective commitment to supervisors was more strongly related to turnover intentions when affective organizational commitment was low. In Sample 3 (N=431), affective commitment to supervisors was the single significant predictor of actual turnover and interacted with affective organizational commitment such that its effect was stronger when affective organizational commitment was low. The implications of these findings for the understanding of the commitment–turnover relationship are discussed.     

Psychological Contracts and Their Implications for Job Outcomes: A Social Exchange View

This article explores the relationship between on the 1 hand psychological contract fulfilment and affective commitment and on the other hand, normative commitment and job satisfaction. We hypothesized that the perceived supervisor support (PSS) and the perceived organizational support (POS) mediate the relationship between the fulfilment of the psychological contract, commitment and job satisfaction. The sample consists in 337 soldiers in training. In order to test our model, we used 3 measures of psychological contract fulfilment (economic, socioemotional and developmental), PSS and POS measures as well as attitudes. Results show that the developmental psychological contract is related to affective and normative organizational commitment and job satisfaction whereas socioemotional fulfilment is unrelated to affective commitment. Psychological contract fulfilment has a greater impact on normative commitment than affective commitment. Results show also that only PSS plays a mediating role in psychological contract processes. Several implications emerge from this study. First, in a military context, it is important to strengthen the developmental psychological contract. Second, it is essential for organizations to place greater emphasis on encouraging supervisors to establish healthy working relationships with newcomers.     

Organizational identification and commitment: correlates of sense of belonging and affective commitment

The general purpose of this work is to analyze the overlap between organizational identification and commitment. Specifically, our study focuses on the analysis of the differences and similarities between sense of belonging (a dimension of organizational identification) and affective commitment (a dimension of organizational commitment). In order to do this, we analyzed their discriminant validity and raised their relationship with variables that previous research had showed like precedent and subsequent variables of them: value congruence, perceived support, organizational citizenship behavior, and intention to continue in the organization. A total of 292 people at one organization completed surveys measuring the variables previously described. The results showed that sense of belonging and affective commitment are different concepts and they have different relationships with relation to precedent and subsequent variables. Affective commitment seems to be more useful than sense of belonging to predict organizational citizenship behavior aimed at the organization and intention to continue. Some practical implications are described.     

Psychology of Terrorism: Classic and Contemporary Insights,edited by Jeff Victoroff and Arie W. Kruglanski

Abstract

Affective and calculative commitment have been associated with distinct work outcomes; however, little research has been directed toward understanding how these dimensions of organizational commitment are embedded within a larger web of work-related attitudes and perceptions. In the present study, higher levels of calculative commitment in a sample of adults in New Zealand and Ireland were associated with lower perceived organizational support, lower agreement with organizational policies, fewer perceived organizational values, and fewer bonds to various facets of the organization. This pattern of findings was reversed for level of affective commitment.